After the library “incident,” Semah wrote in her journal Something needs to be done and underlined the phrase three times. She imagined sprouting a pair of wings and descending upon the unsuspecting couple with a sword of re in her hand. Or crashing through the window with a helmet on her head and a red cape like the etchings of Boadicea she once saw in the Illustrated London News from England.
On the following Wednesday she made an excuse to her painting tutor and returned to her father’s sanctum sanctorum, where she squeezed herself, once again, in the gap between the Biology and Culture shelves. She wanted to know if the tryst was a singular event or if it was a habit. Much to her disgust, her papa and the rosy-cheeked woman burst through the door, ripped off their clothes, and slammed against each other, their bodies fusing into a blob, arms and legs flaring out in different directions like an octopus falling o a tree.
The next week, she elected not to return to her hiding place. Instead, she took her sketchbook and announced to her tutor that she wished to make drawings of the mansion. From a reasonable distance, by the edge of the forest, she drafted various parts of the house as a pretext for keeping an eye on it. She saw her mother depart and, a short time later, her father and the woman arrive in his carriage and rush through the front door. Semah broke the charcoal in her fingers, tore the paper off her sketchbook, and crumpled it into a ball.
Later, she spent the evening pacing in her room. She needed to talk with someone. Someone who could help her think things through. But she had no friends, no siblings, no one really except her tutors. No acquaintances, save those she met weekly at Shabbat, before they disappeared into their own lives. Semah realised how small her world was and how big it appeared when she had laid it out on the map pasted on her bedroom wall. Staring at it, she came up with an idea of how to tell her mother without actually telling on her father.
Just as she had recorded the dates of her visits to various locations on the estate, she now listed the last three Wednesdays on the map. Then she drew an arrow pointing to the window of her papa’s study. Two stick figures, one with a triangle for a skirt, floated above the arrowhead. She stood back and admired her work. The following day she went to see her mother.
“I want to show you my map,” she said to her mama in Arabic. “You made a map?”
“Yes, it is very large. It almost covers the wall. Will you come for tea?” Semah knew that afternoon tea was a ritual her mama had practised for years, ever since she discovered that it was what the English did. “What a lovely thought,” her mama said. “Tea in your room.” And then in English, “Yes, that would suit,” remembering how the Marchioness of Dalhousie, wife of the Governor General, had replied to an invitation when she visited Bengal the year before.
Semah was ecstatic and recorded the entire conversation in her journal.
The next day, her plans played out perfectly. Her mother arrived and Semah showed her to a seat by the window that was strategically placed so that she could admire the map in its entirety. Much to Semah’s delight, her mama appreciated the shapes and colours and recognised the different locations instantly: the stables and horses, the garden brimming with owers, the canopied entrance, the honeycomb of boxes that represented different rooms of her house.
“This is not just a map, my child, this is a work of art!” she said, applauding her daughter’s accomplishment. “There is so much to see.”
“Take your time, Mama,” Semah said. “May I top up your cup?” “Yes, yes,” came the excited reply.
Her mother leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, staring in wonderment at the map. She reached out and found Semah’s hand. Clutching it, she sat silent and smiling while her daughter bathed in the glow of her approbation.
And then her mama saw it.
Saw what she was supposed to see. Saw why she had been invited to tea. Saw what the map represented. There in the bottom corner was a list of dates and an arrow pointing to the study. Her eyes focused on the schematic. She let go of Semah’s hand, stood up, and walked closer to the map. She crouched and touched the paper with her finger, then recited each date quietly. She looked at Semah and said,
“Wednesday. They are all on Wednesday.”
Like an uncoiled spring, she stood and grabbed her daughter by the shoulders. “What happens on Wednesdays? Why are you in Papa’s study every Wednesday?” Then she let go and sat on the chair, one hand on her stomach and the other covering her mouth. “Oh, my g-d,” she said, “that is why…” She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead she rose, swallowed hard, then walked out of the room, leaving the door wide open. Moments later a door slammed and Semah winced.
Over the next few days, Semah didn’t see her mother, not even at meals. She had sent word that she was ill and would stay in bed. The following Wednesday, from her position at the edge of the forest, Semah watched as her mother left the house at the usual time. Shortly after that, the lovers rushed surreptitiously into the house. Semah clenched her fist and kicked over her painting easel. Her tutor rushed to reset the kit, but Semah ran off toward the forest, stopping only when she reached the treeline. She leaned her back against a trunk. Her leg muscles burned from the run. Tears stung her eyes. She was convinced that her clever plan had failed. Her mother was not going to do anything. Clearly, it was up to her to expose the tryst.
The next Wednesday she hid in her usual spot. As expected, the lovers entered, ditched their clothes, and headed for the couch with gleeful abandon. Semah pursed her lips and took in a deep breath. She was about to scream “Stop!” when suddenly the door ew open. And there was her mother, incandescent with rage.
The lovers leapt to their feet, covering genitals with whatever came to hand: a trouser, a skirt, a shoe, a hat.
Semah covered her mouth with her hands.
Her father and the woman froze like statues, their mouths agape.
For a moment no one moved. Then her mother walked briskly to her father. She hauled back an arm and with all her might slapped him across the face.
Her mama looked at the rosy-cheeked woman and said in English, “This is the end of it.” And with that she walked out without closing the door.
Semah felt fresh air rush into the room, liberating it from the choking, squalid atmosphere of mendacity.
That evening Semah took down the map. She considered burning it, but decided instead to fold it carefully and put it in the chest where she kept her childhood toys. She thought it belonged there with all the other remembrances of innocence and the time before she became a grown-up. She was fifteen, after all. Closing the lid put paid to an ugly chapter in her journal, and she looked forward to a renewal of the status quo.
But in the days that followed, her mama refused to speak with her papa. And her papa, despite all the books he had read, could not find the right words to ameliorate his wife’s hurt. Semah was convinced that this icy consequence was her fault. After all, it was she who had engineered the discovery of her father’s a air; she had set in motion the events that followed. She hated feeling like a snitch.
Excerpted with permission from The House Of Wives, Simon Choa-Johnston, Penguin Viking.
